The Justice Department considered dismissing many more U.S. attorneys than officials have previously acknowledged...

But they didn't dismiss them, did they? Minions in government "consider" all sorts of things and produce white papers, studies, etc, etc. But fortunately in this case cooler heads prevailed and ony the attorneys who had reason to be fired were.

ony the attorneys who had reason to be fired were.

Yes, if by "reason to be fired" you mean "were investigating Republican corruption."

They did not care about whether they had anyone in the position of U.S. Attorney, who would actually do the job of routine law enforcement, well.

They did care about putting in place political hacks, where it might prevent prosecution of a Republican for corruption. And, they cared about having a hack in place, in places where the election, next time, might prove close.

Now that Ms Monica has her use immunity and can be compelled to testify, things should get interesting real soon.

In addition to Ms Monica, Susan Ralston, former aid to Abramoff and Rove, is also desperately seeking immunity.
...GOP House members learned that Susan Ralston is requesting immunity to testify before Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman's investigating committee.
She was an assistant to Jack Abramoff, Washington super-lobbyist and Republican fundraiser, in 2001 when he recommended her for the top job with Rove as he entered the White House. As Rove's gatekeeper, Susan Bonzon Ralston became special assistant to the president and the highest-ranking Filipino American in the administration. For Waxman, she is a link between the disgraced, imprisoned Abramoff and Rove, a principal political target of the Democratic-controlled Congress....

> And that, of course, takes us back to the
> central mystery: what the hell were the
> criteria these guys were using for putting
> prosecutors on the purge list and then taking
> them off? Were there any? Was it partisan
> hackery? "Voting fraud" obsession?

Consider the old physics demonstration where you take two loudspeakers and run different pure tones into them. First you listen to the lower - mmmmmm. Then the higer - eeeeeee. Finally you turn them both on and get a whoop-whoop-whoop interference pattern, which you can vary by varying the tones individually.

This I think is the problem with the question for root causes of the USAty scandal among others: there are multiple centers of evil in the W Administration. Cheney is one. Cheney's acolytes and moles may form a separate center. Rove is certainly one. Possibly W even has a master plan of evil (I tend to doubt that, but it isn't impossible). Norquist and his gang work their way in there somewhere too. Others?

So when people see the result (the whoop-whoop sound) they go looking for the single root source. And they usually don't find it, because the effects we see on the outside are the result of multiple evil agendas and multiple evil sources of power working separately, with, and against one another in varying combinations.

Cranky

Cranky nailed it. Kudos.

Putting the AG on the stand again won't do anything; Schumer already declared at the end of the last hearing that there was no point in asking any more questions since all the AG did was obfuscate.

Either impeach Gonzales or - cut off his paychecks (power of the purse).

Cranky's analogy is great.

So far there's been no allegation of any illegal conduct by the Bush Administration in this "scandal". Nor has there been any allegation of illegal conduct in the Comey spy authorization "scandal".

The Dems are using their Congressional majority to concoct phony scandals, instead of dealing with matters the country is concerned about, like funding the troops and ending illegal immigration. No wonder their positive rating is down to 29%.

So far there's been no allegation of any illegal conduct by the Bush Administration in this "scandal".....ex-lax at 2:20 PM

The 8 prosecution attorneys were apparently not going after voter fraud cases... G. W. Orwell at 2:20 PM

I think the original reason they wanted to let them all go was as cover for the few they wanted to get rid of.

absence of allgations of criminal conduct is does not imply that the criminal conduct did not, in fact, occur.

If it talks like a duck.. &c.

absence of allgations of criminal conduct does not imply that the criminal conduct did not, in fact, occur.

If it talks like a duck.. &c.

absence of allgations of criminal conduct does not imply that the criminal conduct did not, in fact, occur.

If it talks like a duck.. &c.

"ex-liberal" wrote: So far there's been no allegation of any illegal conduct by the Bush Administration in this "scandal". Nor has there been any allegation of illegal conduct in the Comey spy authorization "scandal".

So apparently it's "ex-liberal"'s contention that if it isn't illegal, it isn't wrong. We'll see how lont it take him/her/it to contradict that notion; one thing beyond question is that it'll be a Democrat involved.

Meanwhile, "ex-liberal"'s scare quotes are clearly meant to imply that "ex-liberal" does not consider the Administration's conduct shameful. While that's hardlty surprising in someone as morally stunted as "ex-liberal", whose continued posting here proves he/she/it has no shame at all, I don't see how "ex-liberal" could object to a full and public investigation, given how evidently confident he/she/it is that there's no scandal involved.

Unfortunately, the Administration's own conduct reveals that they don't agree.

Shame on you, "ex-liberal".

I agree with Gregory, "shame on you, ex-liberal." I am shocked at how the right claims to believe in the constitution, law and order, and integrity but in turn defend the most egregious partisan behavior.

I honestly think that if Gonzales or the President was using the Constitution like toilet paper, the trolls would argue that he wasn't breaking the law and there must be some secret reason for his action. In reality what they are doing is worse, because it is not a symbolic act. They are injecting partisanship (not policy)in the administration of justice and undermining the rule of law.

We already know that the first cut at Purgegate, back before cooler heads prevailed, was a suggestion that DOJ fire all the U.S. Attorneys and start the new term with a clean slate.

I'm sure there's a memo or an e-mail buried in there pointing out that firing all the U.S. Attorneys would have had the advantage of not requiring "good reasons" for the firings; the "clean slate" theme would insulate them from accusations that some firings were less justified than others. Clearly, this is the lesson being learned by Karl Rove's putative future emulators.

Nor has there been any allegation of illegal conduct in the Comey spy authorization "scandal

Like hell there hasn't. Did you even read the links? And go read Glenn Greenwald's latest. The whole point of this matter is that Ashcroft and Comey wouldn't reauthorize the spying program BECAUSE IT WAS ILLEGAL and Bush went ahead with it anyway.

Ree.Ding.Com.Pre.Hen.Shun.

Kevin,

Consider two things. It was easy to get put on the list and to be taken off the list unless you were Carol Lam (who was on every list). The mass firing happened in early December 2006 (Carol Lam's term expired Nov. 18, 2006). The main reason that the other USAs got fired was to provide cover for firing Carol Lam. It really is that simple. Obviously, if you're going to fire a bunch of USAs for no reason, you pick the ones that are bothersome or hold office in swing states or have pissed off a Republican Senator, but it really is all about punishing Lam for taking a personal interest in the Wilkes/Michael/Cunningham/Foggo/entire CA republican delegation case.

I still don't understand why anyone cares about this -- at least not enough to devote this many posts to the topic. You've succeeded in proving that Gonzales is weasely, but I still don't see the Constitutional crisis that would warrant such an obsession with the issue.

Oh Fiddle, all the D.A.'s were fired because they were suspected of being soft on Democrat voter fraud. I perfectly agree with that analysis and that punishment. . .

In 2008 Democrats will once again register and vote hundreds of thousands of people who have no real identities or who may have multiple identities for voting purposes, may or may not be citizens, and who may or may not have had
their right to vote revoked or restored.

As a genuine right-wing person, I will grudgingly accept being ruled by a majority of qualified, genuine voters, but I will never accept rule by vote fraud, which is basically what we had in the disastrous (and quite dangerous days) of JFK and LBJ. In 2004 in Washington state I am convinced we had an outright theft of the governorship by a calculated, conspiracal, deliberate electoral vote count falsification system. This fraud was never revealed to the world because it was never investigated. We thank U.S. District Attorney John McKay for that, may he burn in hell.

As one judge said about our state's system "In Washington, voters are on the honor system." This means it is essentially impossible to prove that anyone is a fraudulent voter because you can't even establish that they are or ever were a real person to start with! I have long maintained that the only way Republicans can survive in an environment as inherently unfair and unjust as this is to fight fire with fire. There should be just as many fictional Republican voters out there as there are imaginary Democrats, after all.

Alleged humorist Frank J wrote: I still don't understand why anyone cares about this

That comment serves more as an indictment of you than the people who care about Bush's unprecedented politicization of the DoJ.

Alleged conservative mike cook wrote: In 2004 in Washington state I am convinced we had an outright theft of the governorship by a calculated, conspiracal, deliberate electoral vote count falsification system.

How sad for you that the courts were not so convinced.

As for the vote fraud myth you've swallowed and perpetuate here, it's obviously escaped your notice that even Bush's politicized DoJ hasn't demonstrated that it actually exists. (As opposed to undeniable disenfranchisement of voters by Republicans, which I gather you support.) But you're welcome to do what the Republican DoJ couldn't do and present some evidence that it exists. Thanks in advance.